


Dandelion

by merryfortune



Series: The Ignis Obelisks [1]
Category: Yu-Gi-Oh! VRAINS
Genre: Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Dialogue Heavy, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Out of Character, Post canon, Title Subject to Change, self indulgent
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-10
Updated: 2021-01-10
Packaged: 2021-03-14 01:01:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 19,797
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28662888
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/merryfortune/pseuds/merryfortune
Summary: Spectre wants to live in the past.Just notthatpast involving the Orphanage that he left behind without a second thought but it seems fate has other plans when not only has Playmaker returned with the news that the other Ignis were alive, though not necessarily well, but also a girl that he left behind at the Orphanage appears before him as well.
Relationships: Minor or Background Relationship(s), Spectre (Yu-Gi-Oh)/Original Female Character(s)
Series: The Ignis Obelisks [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2119758
Comments: 2
Kudos: 4





	Dandelion

Getting a summons from Playmaker was strangely nerve wracking but not entirely unexpected.

Less than a month ago, Playmaker had made his miraculous return after months of radio silence and he reappeared with the Dark Ignis in tow. He made his rounds; said his hellos. He paid his dues. And now he was back to flipping frankfurters on the inside of the Cafe Nagi truck down by the Stardust Road. So, all in all, it was edging back to normal but the tension, Spectre supposed, had snapped. 

The message had come through for Revolver, of course, not him specifically but he had to make a mandated appearance due to the implicit subject matter. But it made sense that he would be little more than a footnote on such a message. Playmaker wasn’t exactly emotionally invested in him. Why would he be? They weren’t exactly amicable but Spectre had read the message first because that’s what he did. He settled all the internal affairs between himself and Revolver, sometimes the Lieutenants as well but Spectre was primarily Revolver’s confidante and his name appeared in the message. It was blunt. To the point. A date and a time with no further information because the context seemed obvious in regard to the last time they had had some quality face to face interactions.

Playmaker had made a rather solemn promise the last time he had appeared before both Revolver and Spectre. He wanted peace. He was done with war and vengeance. He wanted there to be meaning to his suffering. Ai was going to stay, Playmaker had insisted. 

Spectre could understand that. Debatably empathise, even. He wanted there to be meaning to the Lost Incident as well. But his contentment in the meaning, and what it would look like, he thought, would look very different to how Playmaker saw it. So, perhaps it wasn’t even a scrap of empathising after all.

Playmaker made no reference to the other Ignis, least of all the Earth Ignis, in that curt meeting but now, it appeared, it was time. If Spectre could be so presumptuous. Maybe there was something else entirely but he doubted it. As did Revolver. He was under the same impression of Spectre when Spectre forwarded him the message now that it had been verified by his eyes.

The date of the meeting was soon upon them so with the Lieutenants backing them from the meat-space, Spectre and Ryoken logged into the Link VRAINS. The Lieutenants diligently erased their log in and their further movements through the virtual space as they arrived at the location that Playmaker desired this meeting to take place.

The atmosphere of the landing felt awkward when Revolver and Spectre had arrived but it seemed that the others had been waiting for them. Playmaker’s perpetually harsh expression did soften for a moment as he greeted them.

“I’m glad you could make it.” he said.

Spectre glanced around. Soulburner didn’t visibly prickle, or worse, when Revolver and he had arrived; nor did Blue Maiden. She was accompanied by an unknown whom he was going to assume was Sugisaki Miyu. She seemed quite young, at least standing next to Blue Maiden; she had russet hair and steel blue eyes, yellow clips pinning back her fringe and a basic outfit primed for sports picked out from the general inventory of the Link VRAINS’ character customisation options. Spectre was also mildly surprised that a SOLtiS bot wasn’t accompanying them so that must mean Ai was in Playmaker’s Duel Disc. 

But as Spectre took stock of the people in attendance, he didn’t know why but he thought that there was a set of eyes unaccounted for, that he was - no, that was egotistical, they were - being watched. He was hoping that it was just the perpetual eyes of Unnamed supporting Playmaker and his faction from the real world but he had his doubts when he thought he heard something. A gasp or some other strange noise. Sinking into all these paranoid thoughts, his expression soured further.

“Thank you for inviting us.” Revolver replied to Playmaker compliantly. 

Playmaker took a breath. “I would like to begin.”

“Objection.” Spectre piped up.

“Yes…?” Playmaker replied, slow and quizzical.

“I want our privacy secured.” Spectre said.

“Seconded.” Revolver replied.

“Of course.” Playmaker said. He then tapped the side of his face. “Kusanagi, can you create a blackout around us?”

A moment, Playmaker’s eyes gleamed, he was listening and soon enough, from his utility belt, there was glow. The force field emitted from him as an anchor, umbrellaing out around him, criss-crossing in pale green until the floating island of slate blue rock and white dust was cocooned in the force field. 

“Better?” Playmaker asked.

Sugisaki crooned, bouncing on the heel of her foot, “This is so cool! We’re, like, literal spies and hackers now!” 

“Miyu…” Blue Maiden lamented.

But Spectre honestly wasn’t satisfied. He thought he heard something, still inside the sphere but oh well. He wasn’t exactly in the best mood. He didn’t want to be here, after all. 

“Yes.” Spectre reluctantly said.

“Well, you’ve probably puzzled out why I’ve gathered everyone,” Playmaker said and he raised his wrist to his chest, Ai popped out of his Duel Disc, arms thrown back most exuberantly, “we’ve confirmed life signs of the other Ignis.”

Spectre’s brows twitched but he bit his tongue. He let Revolver speak.

“I’m curious, how?” Revolver asked. “We haven’t detected anything unusual.”

With his other hand, Playmaker pointed to his temples with his index finger. “My Link Sense.”

“And my instinct!” Ai added.

“I remain sceptical.” Revolver said.

Playmaker shrugged. “It’s a radar that doesn’t function like any technology that you would possess, I can’t explain it other than it just works and we have confirmed fleeting signs with other instruments as well; it’s all intertwined with the current state of the Ignis.” Playmaker failed to elaborate.

“I see, well I might be able to put better words in your mouth if I may try, I think I understand.” Blue Maiden piped up.

Playmaker gave her a hand gesture that was flippant but gave her permission.

“It’s like when you randomly think of someone dear but forgotten to you, yes? And then that connection is reignited.” Blue Maiden allegorised. 

Sugisaki smiled smugly, she hooked her arm around Blue Maiden, who was a head taller than her, and hugged her. Blue Maiden smiled as she was bowed down in Sugisaki’s playful embrace.

“Yes, exactly like that.” Playmaker said and there was a distinct fondness in his voice which was very Fujiki Yusaku.

“So… That means…” Soulburner, who had been quiet up until now, had finally spoken. His eyes were gleaming with hope.

“Yes, we can find Flame.” Playmaker confirmed, he then looked towards the girls. “We can find Aqua,” and he turned his head to Spectre, “and-”

“I’m not interested.” Spectre cut in.

Revolver was expressionless. Difficult to read even though he had finally disavowed his mask and visor in entirety. He didn’t know where to be proud or pitiful for Spectre’s sake so he remained difficult. Stern.

Playmaker faltered but Soulburner redirected the conversation away from that particular brick wall. Although arguably by asking the other burning question, he had thrown petroleum on the fire but it was better than being stalled out.

“Are you going to bring back Lightning and Windy?” Soulburner asked, his hands raised slightly.

“Yes.” Playmaker said. His voice was strong and firm. “I believe they deserve forgiveness.” It was no mistake when his eyes slid over to Revolver and Spectre.

“And Jin’s okay with that?” Soulburner asked. “Hell, Kusanagi’s okay with that?”

“He is.” Playmaker replied. “They both are.”

“How noble.” Revolver commented. “And what of the Wind Ignis? He terminated his Origin, after all.”

“That would be up to Windy.” Playmaker said.

“But, uh, how’re they coming back?” Sugisaki asked.

“I’m glad you asked, Miyu-Miyu,” Ai said playfully, “thanks to the hot dog man’s gallant detective efforts, we’ve managed to streamline the combination of mine and Playmaker-chan’s talents because, er, something strange happened to the other Ignis.”

“They’ve been entombed.” Playmaker said.

“We think it has something to do with how Bohman captured them but it seems that within the Mirror Link VRAINS, obelisks dedicated to the various Ignis are appearing.” Ai continued to explain. “One for each of my little friends.”

“We’re still tracking their movements but we’ve already confirmed visual on the Fire Obelisk.” Playmaker said.

Soulburner’s eyes went wide. “Yes! Yes, please, let’s go straight away!” 

“I am finding this incredibly difficult to believe.” Revolver said. “I think if towers or obelisks dedicated to the Ignis, because they are manifestations of the Ignis returning, us Knights would have detected them. We’ve been monitoring the situation closely and have hadn’t a single blip that would align with your findings, Playmaker.” 

“You're just gonna have to trust as then, ever sharp, Revolver-sensei.” Ai teased and he pulled at his right eye with a finger to accentuate his rudeness; a shame he didn’t have a tongue.

“I’ll have Kusanagi forward the program he made to assist Ai and mine’s efforts to track the Ignis Obelisks.” Playmaker said.

Revolver chuckled whilst Ai fumed. Playmaker was too soft when it came to his oh so precious Revolver, it seemed.

“But only on the condition that you don’t use it to exterminate the Ignis once more.” Playmaker said. He then turned to Spectre, specifically. “Ai told me about the sort of things you…. Discussed during your duel. They were cruel but I think-”

“Let me guess. Cruel but things you don’t necessarily disagree with.” Spectre interrupted him with a glare of cold fury.

Playmaker faltered. Once again, Spectre had hit the nail on the head with him and his expression turned guilty.

Playmaker spoke again, redirecting the conversation so he could be on top again, “I know you're lying when you say you don’t care about Earth. I’m certain that your duels with Lightning and Ai impacted you in some way that you're repressing. I’m sure Revolver can attest to that, too.”

Again, Revolver was expressionless. Even motionless save for how his fingers curled in against the latex on his palm, his hand becoming a fist. He and Spectre were strange. Close but very distant. A great chasm between them. Time moving forward versus time stopping altogether. That’s what separated them and the root cause was the Incident. The Ignis. But it wasn’t his place to speak. It was Spectre’s.

And before Spectre could reply at all, if he wanted to, that is, the most peculiar noise rang out across the field. A sneeze. A petite achoo.

“Dandy, you idiot!” a muffled voice spoke through gritted teeth.

Everyone turned their heads to the side. The noise had definitely been within the sphere and come to the right.

“Uh-oh… now we’re in for it…” that same muffled voice spoke.

“Whose been eavesdropping?” Playmaker growled.

Two girls gingerly tumbled out of their hiding spot behind an innocuous outcrop of rocks that no one had hardly noticed. It was a little bit rougher to the outskirts of this magnetised hinterlands; not so much in the flat middle ground where they had gathered.

One girl was holding the other, specifically with one hand clamped around the other’s face and her wrist. They seemed uncomfortably close with each other, having no boundaries. One was blonde, wearing a cowgirl-like get up with a long coat and a fedora, but the other was dressed more magical girl-esque with two toned hair of pastel lime and dark green streaks.

“I’m sorry. I sneezed.” the girl who was being held down said as her friend slowly let go of her.

“And if you're expecting me to say sorry, I’m not gonna, I got here fair and square. Well before you, bucko.” the blonde one said and she traipised up to Playmaker, skirt and coat fluttering. She put one hand on her hip and the other, she held out to shake. “Anyways, this is the scoop of the century. What the heck is an Ignis? Anyways, I’m Bunny of the Rabbit News Corp and company, this is my best friend, sole member of my company, and altogether entourage, Dandelion, and I want in on this story.”

“Oh no…” her friend beside her mumbled, she clutched onto Bunny, as all around them, the big players in this game glared - save one, Sugisaki of course who was thrilled by the development.

“Spectre, I want you to check the credibility of this Rabbit News Corp…” Revolver instructed.

“Understood, sir.” Spectre said.

Spectre averted his eyes from these girls. It was bad enough having one civilian interloper in their midst - Sugisaki, that was - but to have another two - one of which self identified as a reporter - was beyond a headache. He put up his hand and in a cavalcade of blue and white data, sparkling, his tablet manifested and he stared to do some searching on this so-called Rabbit News Corp and company. He didn’t notice that Dandelion was staring until she finally mustered the courage to speak.

“Excuse me,” she piped up, “but are you, um, Tree Boy?” She then blushed and smacked her face. “Sorry, that was rude, but is that really you, Hideki-kun?”

Spectre froze.

Revolver even froze on behalf of his confidante. 

“Hideki… kun?” Soulburner screwed up his face. 

Playmaker turned silent as he exchanged a look with Blue Maiden; she was as tentatively confused as he was, apparently. But they were all curious. They wanted to see how this interaction played out since it seemed so electrically volatile.

“How do you know that name?” Spectre asked, looking up from his tablet, he seemed severely rattled, which was saying something since it was him, and yet the girl inquiring was so timid. 

He stared at her. She had much less presence than her friend with the cowboy boots. She seemed more docile than that. Hiding under a fluffy fringe, she had orange eyes framed by long lashes and honestly, her facial structure didn’t evoke much in Spectre’s mind. Nor did her outfit: a dress of white with a cross-stitch inspired bodice at her solar plexus and scrunched up, short sleeves, underneath her excessive skirt were layers upon ruffles and other pom-poms alternating at arbitrary in orange and yellow accents. Actually, her outfit did remind him of something…. one of the minor characters from the book  _ Blue Angel _ but that could mean anything.

“It is, isn’t it?” she continued, emboldening slightly, leaving her friend’s side. “I - I thought you were dead. Th-That’s what the matrons said. You were dead. For real this time.”

Spectre began to wrack his brains but his tablet found the information that he needed before him. Before he could eliminate by process in his mind, he glanced down at the account information belonging to Bunny, but more pressingly, the account information belonging to Dandelion. He looked at that name. 

“Morikawa… Kureha.” Spectre breathed. He only knew part of that name. If he recalled correctly, and he did because he had a perfect memory, then she had taken a new family name. He looked at her - his eyes were sharp but his brows were sloped, it wasn’t a glare - and he stopped.

“O-Oh, so you do remember me?” she asked.

Revolver glanced at Spectre. He didn’t know any of that name.

Dandelion’s eyes began to water. “H-How? I’m serious. E-Everyone thought you were dead. For real this time.” Her breath sounded stingingly hot.

“I am.” he said. “I’m just a ghost now.” Spectre then glanced at the other people here, venomous. “And I’m not discussing this further. Understood?”

Dandelion nodded as though she had been the one addressed specifically.

And yet, Playmaker still discreetly sent a message to Kusanagi, asking for the downlow on a Morikawa Kureha. 

Her friend, Bunny, cooed. “Ooh, this just got juicy, now I have even  _ more _ questions to ask.”

“Absolutely not,” Spectre spat, “your so-called news group is speculative drivel at best.”

Bunny glared. “Why you little-”

“Aah, don’t upset him.” Dandelion advised, fretting over her friend. She glanced at Playmaker and the others. “I promise we won’t spread your secrets, I’ll make sure Bunny doesn’t post about it on her blog, I swear.” She was quaking in her little, high heeled ankle boots. And because of Spectre.

“We’ll make sure of that.” Playmaker said, vaguely menacing.

Dandelion made a frightened noise but Bunny just growled. 

“Yeah, we’ll see about that.” Bunny countered, all bark and no bite and everyone knew it.

“I’m going to force log them out now.” Revolver said.

“Y-Yeah, it might be for the best…” Blue Maiden reluctantly agreed.

With a snap of his fingers, Revolver made good on his promise. The two girls were escorted out of the Link VRAINS in their entirety. Bunny tried fighting back against this inevitability but she was muted before her avatar was broken into billions; Dandelion merely waved goodbye, accepting that she and Bunny had been given the flick.

“So, um, that just happened?” Sugisaki piped up. “But, um, what was that?”

“I have no idea, truth be told.” Blue Maiden replied to her.

Revolver thirded the sentiment but it went unspoken.

“I’m logging out.” Spectre announced. “Adjourn this meeting without me. It appears all has been said and done, no? Goodbye.”

Spectre didn’t even wait for a reply from the others or permission from Revolver. He simply disappeared. And even though his presence was usually overlooked, his sudden disappearance did leave a space. An echo. It was disconcerting.

Sugisaki turned her head to Revolver who seemed a little bit shaken. “Do you know what that was about?”

“No.” Revolver replied. “I don’t.” 

“Well, he’s not wrong, we can adjourn soon. I’ve covered all but one thing.” Playmaker said.

“Which is?” Blue Maiden prompted him.

“The Ignis Obelisks appear at random and fleetingly. At the moment, it appears that there is no order they appear in but between Kusanagi and the Knights, if we keep an eye on things, a pattern - or even a moment to strike at all. We’ll have to move quickly, though, to get inside and we don’t even know what the inside looks like yet but we’ll have more meetings as we get to those.” Playmaker explained.

“Understood.” Revolver replied.

“Oi, oi, is it really the best idea to give the Knights our program?” Ai asked.

“It’s simply returning the favour for that one time.” replied Playmaker and he lifted his head slightly for the scantest smile to flicker over his lips. “Well, meeting adjourned.”

“I hope Aqua comes back soon.” Blue Maiden piped up before they could have all their farewells.

Sugisaki nodded her head. “Me too, me too. I wanna finally meet my Ignis. I can’t wait.”

“Yeah, I can’t wait for Flame to come back. I hope his tower thingy appears soon.” Soulburner agreed.

“I will leave all of you alone with such pleasantries,” Revolver replied, terse and diplomatic, “until I’m required, I suppose.”

“Or when you're craving a Cafe Nagi dog. Whatever happens sooner. Probably the street meat hankering.” Ai teased.

Revolver didn’t think that remark was worth countering so he logged out unceremoniously. He had much to worry about. Much to think about. The Ignis returning and apparently some girl from Spectre’s past had returned as well and he also supposed that he had to worry about that gossip rag as well. He didn’t quite know which was more pressing and which one was more orbital. 

He couldn’t stop thinking about her. Morikawa Kureha. Ryoken had never heard that name once in the past ten years, he was certain. He knew every aspect of Spectre’s life. He was home-schooled and only sociably interacted with him and the Lieutenants, not even the other victims of the Incident, only them. His inner world was so small so who in the world could that girl possibly be and how could she know the name that Spectre had left behind all those years ago. It was a bit bizarre. But he also felt insulted as Ryoken thought that the trust was mutual and undeniably endless.

Ryoken huffed as he got out of his seat. He felt hazy in his mind and he got up like a fawn trying to walk for the first time. He had to find Spectre but Spectre found him first. Ryoken stumbled into the kitchen and Spectre’s gait changed. He became a prey animal, of sorts, as he glared at Ryoken with his eyes wide and lunar.

“Are you okay?” Ryoken asked.

“This was the last thing I needed.” Spectre replied, hissing.

Ryoken faltered upon hearing that. Suddenly, he was seeing many, if not all, the cracks in Spectre’s facade. He did well to placate himself around Ryoken even though Ryoken knew how Spectre had sobbed that night when the Earth Ignis died and how furious he was seeing its corpse repurposed into Go Onizuka’s eye but this was completely different. That came from that place, the Lost Incident, this was coming from somewhere else, the Orphanage.

“Who, um, was that girl?” Ryoken was almost afraid to ask.

“She’s not my friend. I can’t emphasise that enough.” Spectre replied breathily. “She’s not not my friend either, I suppose. I don’t - I didn’t hate her. I suppose…”

“You're not making much sense…” Ryoken replied but he was kind of half-hearted about it. 

Spectre was quiet. “Let’s just subjugate the Rabbit Corp News. We don’t need more publicity.”

“The Lieutenants can take care of it.” Ryoken offered.

“I’m just. Rattled, is all.” Spectre admitted. “It’s not like me.” He took off his jacket and folded it over his arm. He felt a little bit better now, it was a slight weight off.

“It’s exactly like you, in my opinion.” Ryoken countered. “She found the chink in your armour, after all. It happens but only now and then.”

Spectre looked at Ryoken, all but examined him with his eyes and he wore a defensive expression. He sighed. As though he couldn’t maintain it but Ryoken knew that Spectre could be quite stalwart when he wanted to. To protect his heart. After all, Spectre was Ryoken’s little knight. Ryoken came first and to that end, Spectre was willing to hold back all sorts of tears and indignation. Just look at Earth’s death, after all. Even knowing that Ryoken had said all sorts of cruel things to Yusaku about it, Spectre appeared outwardly unfazed.

“She came to the orphanage when she was about four years old.” Spectre confessed. “She would sit with me at dinner and breakfast. We were allowed to eat lunch outside but dinner and breakfast were always served at the tables and we weren’t allowed to sit alone. I would sit at the end of the table; she would sit second in. That way, I would only be boxed in by her and whoever sat across from me which was rare. I was avoided but avoiding me at mealtimes was a bit more difficult.”

“But she didn’t avoid you?” Ryoken asked. “How come? And how come you’ve never mentioned this? I thought that place was Hell for you?”

“It was. And I made the orphanage Hell for her.” Spectre replied.

“Ah. That makes sense.” Ryoken nodded. He wondered, briefly, if Spectre had done something he wasn’t all that proud of to this poor girl; it, admittedly, seemed in character for him.

“I would get picked on and then, in turn, I would pick on her. Though she kept coming back, I don’t really know why. I never asked but I suspect latent masochistic tendencies. Regardless, I tolerated her more than I tolerated some of the other brats in that facility.” Spectre explained.

“I see. And do you want to see more of her?” Ryoken asked.

Spectre was quiet for a moment before saying, in a small, truthful voice, “I do, actually. I want to see how she turned out.”

Ryoken hummed.

“This is the first time in ten years I’ve ever thought about her but I’m curious now.” Spectre added.

“Interesting…” Ryoken murmured. “Well, whilst we have our Lieutenants probe Rabbit Corp News, we can handle this girl and looking into her digital past.”

“Cyber stalking. Our favourite activity, thank you, just the thing to cheer me up.” Spectre flatteringly replied, a hand on his heart.

Retiring to their office, the two set to work to discover what they could about the present life of Morikawa Kureha and they could not have been more disappointed with the mundanity of what they had found.

As far as the outside looking in could tell, the family that Kureha had been adopted into could not have been more suburban, more average, more normal. She could not have been the median more as a sixteen year old attending high school; although, it was rather odd that she attended Den City High School, the same one as their cohort but from the records, her life and their lives never overlapped further from there. That was the only striking thing they learned from pulling up her school records so they delved further into her background and her family members.

There were few things of note or interest to be turned up as part of a search into her parents. They were model citizens, by all accounts and by breaking into the sealed adoption records, could not have come with more glowing recommendations. Her parents had been entangled in credit card scams once or twice as the victims, being sideswiped on the go from the looks of things but as modern convenience had it, that was put on ice. There wasn’t so much as a major illness or a speeding ticket in their histories. They went to the country side occasionally for holidays and had not quite family but very close friends out where it was rural and landlocked. They celebrated Kureha’s birthday every year on their rather blank and generic but happy go lucky social media pages. In fact yes, it was the fact that Kureha was adopted which was the most unusual thing about them but that was easily swept up.

She had assimilated well and looked rather of blood kin to her parents so none may guess that she hadn’t been biologically born to them. 

But it was digging into Kureha’s socials which interested them - Spectre, mostly - as it gave them a grasp on what the girl had become since leaving the orphanage for such a lovely family. Her online presence was harmless. She was distant in her public persona and barely anymore authentic in her anonymous ones, of which she had a very heavily identifiable pattern by utilising dandelions as her aesthetic motifs in her usernames, profile pictures, and so on. Mostly she had an ordinary and placid online presence with a saccharine aura about it.

The only odd thing about it was that outside of her public profile on the website that her parents used, and she interacted with them and her schoolmates as well there, she only interacted with her best friend Bunny - real name Amano Maemi, it had been discovered - outside of that. In addition to that, Kureha interacted overwhelmingly positive. Hyping up her writing, sharing it to her own middling followers. It was a sign of friendship, Ryoken and Spectre supposed. Still, were it not for the vastly different syntax that they used, Kureha could have been mistaken for a sock puppet of Aino’s by those without the ability to untangle identification codes on various pages. 

It was all so normal that they suspected there had to be a cover for something but such suspicions turned out unfounded. Ryoken nor Spectre could find anything which would seem that way. All in all, what they had discovered, was pleasant.

And Spectre didn’t know how to feel about that.

He had not thought about Kureha since he was a child, he was now thinking very hard about her. She had arrived at the orphanage when she was four and he, having spent his whole life there, was already about the same age. The matrons of the orphanage never revealed what happened to Kureha’s birth family, only said she would be here until next of kin stated they would take her in or surrender her to the state. Within the month, she was surrendered.

He remembered meeting her for the first time. Seeing her and her little bob cut that was cut at the mid of her ears, slightly longer at the back and underneath rather than a uniform cut. She was timid and docile and weak. Scared of coming to a new place, meeting new people. He had thought her to be dumb and a coward. He didn’t like her but they still sat together at dinner that first night because no one knew her and everyone hated him so they were stuck together. They didn’t say a single word to each other over dinner and she ate slowly, not liking the taste of what they had eaten because it didn’t have that homemade quality to it.

For two years, that was their routine, Spectre supposed. Though, they became more wordy over time. They would pester and badger each other; him more scathing than her but she tried and when she failed to cut him, he laughed because her insults were tepid and cute. 

He didn’t miss it. Or at least that’s what he had thought for so long.

Still, Spectre called the investigation into Morikawa Kureha a bust. Ryoken was inclined to agree but as they emerged from the three, maybe four hours, they had poured into discovering what they could about her, he thought there was something different about Spectre. Something almost remorseful in the tired way he carried himself, bidding Ryoken good night even though neither of them had dinner and there by sending Ryoken, who could not cook to save his life, to bed on an empty stomach. Something Spectre disliked to do.

Although, Ryoken ended up fending for himself, ordering takeaway, Spectre, meanwhile, slept restlessly in his room. Although, maybe it wasn’t so much as sleep as it was resting. He didn’t feel asleep, just lying down with his eyes closed, ignoring how his stomach rumbled. He only felt slightly unburdened by the fact that he knew that Ryoken had gone to bed with some sort of dinner, even if it wasn’t homemade.

In the morning, Spectre was a wreck. He had bags under his eyes, he seemed vague but he made breakfast just fine regardless. Ryoken sat down with him at the dining table but neither spoke. They just ate in silence. Ryoken waited for Spectre to say something - anything - as they finished up. And it was only when Spectre had arranged his cutlery neatly on his plate, that he did have something to say.

“Thank you for this meal…” he murmured to himself.

“Thank you for this meal.” Ryoken hastily echoed back.

Spectre’s eyes flicked up to Ryoken. “As you can tell, I’m not feeling like myself today.” he mentioned.

“I know.” Ryoken mumbled.

“So, I will just mill around the house, resting.” Spectre said.

“Hard disagree.” Ryoken interjected.

Spectre’s mild expression snarled with distaste and confusion.

“I think you are making excuses.” Ryoken said. “Drink some goddamn coffee and go talk to her.”

“I don’t want to.” Spectre retorted.

“Spectre, answer me this: what do you want?” Ryoken asked, his eyebrows furrowed in and the ice blue of his eyes hardened.

It was a fierce expression and Spectre flinched. His gaze drew away from Ryoken, from across the table. He put his hands on the corner and his own expression changed again. To something like grief.

“I want what you want.” Spectre all but recited in a tiny voice. “I want what’s best for our goals and to have the means to complete them.”

“Goals is vague. What are they?” Ryoken asked. “What have they become? The Ignis will be returning and I want to be of my word. I will see to it they are not eradicated either by us or by our ally foes at SOL Tech or anything else which might seek to harm them. That is our goal now, Spectre, so is that what you want?”

Spectre flinched again, gritted his teeth. The image of that squarish, orange Ignis appeared in his mind’s eye and he wanted it gone. “I don’t like this-”

“I know you don’t,” Ryoken spoke softly, to console him, “but I think these are things you need to consider.”

Spectre let go of his breath. It felt hot in his mouth and hotter outside of it. He took a deep, if snivelling breath, and with it, his shoulders were raised from the droop and tuck they had receded into. He found some steadiness inside of him and was able to at least look towards Ryoken again.

“I don’t want to be greedy.” Spectre said. “I would have been content to push the boulder up that hill every morning if it meant that things didn’t change. Become complicated. I liked what we had. Even if it was small and oftentimes gruelling, it was better than nothing because I was needed.”

Ryoken smiled with a decrepit fondness on his face. He reached out across the dining room table and put a hand atop Spectre’s. “You’re not greedy,” Ryoken told him, “and even if you were, I would want you to be. In fact, I do want you to be greedy. You’re not a dog who has to beg for scraps, you don’t have to swallow your wants and needs to be what you think is your most useful self. I want you greedy and useless.”

Spectre made a damnable noise from the middle of his throat. He knew excruciatingly well that he was being unreasonable but he couldn’t stop himself. He knew that if he were a plant, then the pot that he was presently in, he had outgrown and was now beginning to slant to his detriment but he detested the idea of change more than he detested discomfort. Thinking such things made him deeply uncomfortable deep inside of him. There were pinpricks of tears in his eyes in the middle of this rather difficult conversation. But Ryoken spoke further as kindly as he could.

“I want you to expand your world, just a little bit further, think about it. This is an astounding coincidence, you have to admit. You’ve met someone from your old world, the one you left behind, and now you’ve had a glimpse at her new world and the way her life and yours should have been tangent lines never to meet again but this sudden chance encounter, already at the brink of huge changes? It has to mean something. I don’t want you ignoring that because you're afraid.” Ryoken’s eyes began to water. 

Spectre’s heart wrenched. There was nothing worse than making Ryoken cry. He swallowed a wet lump in his throat.

“Fine.” Spectre tried his hardest not to spit the word out. “I’ll go visit her. After I have done the dishes and made myself a coffee.”

Ryoken made a funny noise which might have been half a chuckle and Spectre exhaled through his nose, similarly strange. He got up and Ryoken pushed his plate, cutlery messily strewn atop it, towards Spectre. Spectre straightened it up and matched them together. He returned to the kitchen thereafter and Ryoken watched as Spectre made himself busy. 

Spectre fed the crockery they used this morning into the dishwasher, alongside what Ryoken hadn’t washed up the night before from his takeout. Whilst the dishwasher whirred, Spectre made himself - and Ryoken too, even though he hadn’t asked but it was implicit - a cup of chai coffee. Spectre brought two mugs back to the dining room table and Ryoken drank with him there. 

This time, unlike with the silence that had eaten at them before and during breakfast, the silence was companionable as they drank their coffee. It was nice, warm and spiced, and when they finished, Spectre checked the time and then took a big breath.

“It's barely ten o’clock,” he observed, “and on a Sunday, if I go now and assuming I don’t have any troubles, I should arrive by eleven and I will aim to be home by two.”

“You don’t have to set yourself a curfew. Take as long as you need.” Ryoken said, half amused that Spectre would say such a thing.

“I’m actually aiming to be home sooner,” Spectre informed him, “after all, what if she doesn’t appreciate an unexpected guest such as I.” 

“Fair enough, but fingers crossed.” Ryoken said.

Spectre suppressed a glare. He really didn’t get why Ryoken was supporting this as he was. He was being totally pushy about it but it was still nice to see him in such a good, even light-hearted mood.

Spectre excused himself and then got ready to leave. He grabbed a coat because it appeared to be cold outside, even took a water bottle and phone charger with him, just in case, and brushed his teeth. He bade Ryoken farewell and they both had vastly different hopes for how soon Spectre would be back.

Going out into Den City alone was something that Spectre found barely more acceptable than going out with either Ryoken or the Lieutenants. At least alone, he could dawdle as he needed as he had a tendency to grow increasingly irritable outside. Cities were awful. They contained too many people and at night, too many bright lights. It was horrid and to say nothing of the pollution and general disrespect for the natural ecosystem. 

At least on the bright side, Spectre realised that Kureha lived in one of the easier to get to parts of Den City. The more friendly to the two parents and three kids kinds of places, with parks held to high standards and entertainment centres of good value within reach. The more middle class version of what he had grown up within the sphere of at the mansion but still something of a dream away considering his history at the orphanage and how close it had been to something proper, nestled in the crook of just being on the mountainside. 

Approaching the apartment complex where Kureha and her family resided filled Spectre with dread. Having cross referenced Kureha’s digital address, where she logged into various things from, with similar addresses belonging to her parents, he and Ryoken had pinned down her physical location. Then, they compared it against various logs from real estate and the like so now, Spectre was certain that the rather nice looking building that he was able to enter without so much as a second glance from a passer by was the right place.

He pressed the up button on the ground floor elevator through the veneer of a handkerchief then waited patiently. The bell then rang and the doors opened to an empty elevator. No one to share with. Perfect. Spectre continued to make up his way up to the correct floor. 

His stride was placid as he left the elevator and trawled the halls, both curious and cautious. The corridors inside were a little bit darker than he was expecting; there were half-moon lamps on the walls and the carpet below was a deep, navy blue but the plaques, misty and yellowed with black numbers on them, were of perfect clarity and he found the both the Morikawa family's nameplate and their number.

“Hello, Morikawa Kureha, your childhood friend is here to play with you.” Spectre’s voice rang out as he rapped his knuckles against the door.

He knocked three times and then stopped. He waited and then he heard something which made him grin the most fanged grin. He heard someone - young, girlish - squeak and squeal in surprise, and also possibly terror. He hoped that it was terror. He heard tiny footsteps approach the door and when he peered into the little telescope nook, he saw a huge green eye and she saw a huge blue eye in return.

Kureha scrambled away from the door and Spectre reached for the sleek doorknob. He gave it a rattle, twice over.

“Kureha, dearest, let your dear old friend in.” Spectre implored of her.

“No!” she yelled. “Go away! You’re an internet terrorist and I am absolutely not supposed to let criminals inside!”

Spectre laughed. She was just as adorable as he remembered. “Please, I do not wish to harm a hair on your head, I promise. I very genuinely just want to talk. One former ward of the Mountainside Orphanage to another.”

“You promise…?” Kureha warbled.

“I promise.” Spectre said but they both knew that didn’t hold much validity.

And yet, the door opened, just a crack, and Kureha peeked through and Spectre’s heart fluttered. That floppy, fluffy fringe of hers. It hadn’t changed a smidgen in length, even after all these years and Spectre was immediately endeared. And beneath it, he caught glimpses of Kureha’s forest green eyes and her pouty little mouth.

“You absolutely promise?” she insisted again in a quiet voice.

“I absolutely promise.” Spectre said and he put his hand on the vertices of the door.

His chest tightened. There was the possibility that Kureha would frighten again and slam his hand in the doorjamb but instead, she opened up the door a little further and nodded. She took his whole hand the same way that just a pinkie finger would suffice, apparently.

“Pardon the intrusion.” Spectre said, smarmy.

Kureha hobbled to the side of the doorway, quaking in her fluffy slippers this time, and Spectre came inside. He took off his own shoes - patent leather, good for boating - and looked around. The first thing that struck him was his own reflection as at the end of this sort of entrance, there was a large, black framed mirror and his eyes only grew more curious from there. He peered around, scanning his surroundings, making observations but from what he could prematurely tell, it felt like the small, neat home of a family.

“Thank you for visiting…” Kureha uncertainly piped up.

Spectre turned his head to her and thought to himself that this was the Kureha whom he knew. The girl from yesterday, that version of her which was saccharine and froufrou, was unidentifiable to Spectre. But this one he did know and found precious out of some faucet of nostalgia that he didn’t realise that he possessed. Even if it was part and exchange, as things tended to be after extended periods of time. He remembered being about the same height as her but now he towered over her; she just came up to his chest in height. But then again, from her demeanour and how she still hid under her fringe, it was good to know that some things hadn’t changed in the decade’s absence that they had. But, she had still grown up then some.

However, though her fringe had remained unchanged, it was no longer cut to such a short and sharp bob. Kureha had grown her hair out into a thick, fluffy mane coloured so dark it was close to black but not quite. It was, in actuality, an abyssal coloured mauve that she wore in a side ponytail that wound around her the right side of her neck and shoulder like a scarf. She dolled it up with a hair tie that was adorned with a flowery white ornament. A dandelion, if one stretched the imagination. She was wearing a corduroy pinafore of a dusty orange colour and a long sleeve shirt underneath that was white. Stockings, too, which had faint stripes to them. She toyed with the end of her as she let Spectre scrutinise her. 

But only because she was doing the same to him, though less intensely.

His hair had gotten slightly longer and his eyebrows had become a touch unruly but that was about it. He looked the same as he did yesterday, inside the network of the Link VRAINS and how he had ten years ago. It was strange. 

“I think we should, um, reintroduce ourselves to each other.” Kureha managed to pipe up. 

“A fine idea.” Spectre replied.

Kureha bent over far too much in a bow. “It is good to meet you, my name is Morikawa Kureha, please call me Kureha.”

“The pleasure is all mine,” Spectre replied, barely tipping his head forward as Kureha straightened up, “and I go by Spectre these days. Refer to me exclusively as that.”

Kureha blinked owlishly. “Spectre…?” she repeated his name and she liked how it felt on her tongue - and Spectre even liked how it sounded in her cadence.

“Yes, Spectre.” he said and he folded his arms. “As I told you yesterday, I’m a ghost and that is a good name to reflect that.”

“I see.” Kureha murmured. She glanced away from Spectre, down the hallway and then back to him. “Would you like something to drink? Eat?”

“That would be lovely, Kureha.” Spectre replied.

Kureha ducked off and let Spectre wander through behind her. He admired more of the various, familial knick-knacks on the walls, on the cupboards and the like of the living room that the entranceway bloomed into. He tried his best not to find it sickening or trite or sickeningly trite. Regardless, he settled on the lounge and he waited for Kureha to serve him.

A few minutes later, Kureha returned with two cups of black tea and a selection of cream biscuits she had put on a small plate. She set the plate down on the coffee table and handed over a cup of tea to Spectre. Looking down the rim of the cup to the meniscus of the tea, Spectre couldn’t say that he was pleased by what he saw - a cheap, common bag of tea mistreated by how Kureha made it - but he still took a sip to be polite. Though, Kureha still saw that flicker of displeasure.

“I know.” she said to no comment as she sat down. “I’m not really good at making tea.”

“Its drinkable.” Spectre replied. “You just need to refine your process, use more loved tea leaves.”

“I see…” Kureha replied, chewing on her reply. She held onto her cup and let the warmth of her tea soak through her palms. Silence which was cold and stern began to permeate between them. She stole another look at Spectre, who drank elegantly from the cup he had been given and at that inopportune time, she asked, “So, um, what have you been up to, these last couple years? Aside from, um, domestic cyber terrorism…”

“You know about that?” Spectre asked.

“It’s completely gone from the news cycle but of course. I mean, Maemi and I are dedicated to journalism, especially things involving Duel Monsters and urban legends.” Kureha rambled. “So yeah. I am well aware of your activities as part of the Knights of Hanoi - and the stuff with Playmaker but I don’t really get it, what was-”

“I don’t want to talk about yesterday.” Spectre told her.

Kureha stared at her cup, “Even though it's the reason we found each other again after so long?” Her voice was tiny.

“It’s not like you missed me, be honest.” Spectre said.

“I did miss you!” Kureha snapped.

Her suddenly loud voice rang through the room. Even Kureha had spooked herself with her sudden interjection and Spectre just stared at her until his eyes dried. Then, and only then, did he blink and process what he had been told. 

“I missed you…” Kureha confessed, a lot quieter this time.

“You did?” Spectre asked in a voice which was squeakier than he expected.

Kureha nodded and already, her eyes were watering. Forever the cry-baby, it seemed. 

“I did.” she said, blubbering. “I - I was the person who told the matrons that you were missing again. Th-They shrugged me off. I-It took… it took them three days to realise I was right. You were gone. For… for real this time.”

Spectre was unsure of what to do so he just let Kureha cry. But that was difficult. Painful. So, he set down his cup and he got off the lounge. He knelt in front of where Kureha sat and he put her hands on hers and he felt the remaining warmth of her tea which was going cold in her hands.

“Save your tears,” he told her, “the living dead are not worth them.”

“But I missed you, dead or alive it doesn’t matter, ‘cause I - I missed you ,” Kureha sobbed, “so you are worth them.”

A chord was struck inside of - or, perhaps against - Spectre. He was harrowed by it. By the care that Kureha had for him. He couldn’t believe it. He… He had always thought that she would be relieved by his absence since he thought that they made each other miserable as children. 

“Where did you go? Why did you disappear at all?” Kureha whispered to Spectre. “What happened to you? Why weren’t you allowed to talk about it?”

“The answer to all your incessant questions, my dear, is that I found my loyalties and now even my loyalties are spurning me.” Spectre replied and Kureha saw it.

The needle of a tear in his eye.

He reached up, however, and caressed her face. He didn’t mind the feeling of her tears, like slime, on his hands as he held her before wiping away what remained of them in her eyes. He sighed and got up again. He had meant to return the prior seat that he had taken on the lounge but instead, he sat one cushion closer to Kureha rather than in the middle like before.

“The Knights of… Hanoi?” Kureha guessed.

“My liege wants me to ‘expand’ my world.” Spectre said. “I’ve spent the past ten years with them, they found me when no one else wanted to find me. Except you, apparently.”

“Your right…” Kureha murmured guiltily. “I didn’t even try looking for you. Not once, not ever...”

“And now I’m here.” Spectre said.

“And now you're here.” Kureha agreed with a hiccup.

“But what of you?” Spectre asked. “What have you been up to?”

Kureha shrugged. “Not much. I got adopted a year after you disappeared for the second time.”

“Congratulations, it's nice. They seem lovely.” Spectre said, his voice high with a pretence. 

“And I went to new schools and not much has really happened.” Kureha replied. “Oh, um, my birth mother’s aunt, so my great aunt, sends me letters on my birthday but that’s about the only contact that we have. She’s really sorry that she couldn’t take me in after her niece died but she didn’t think she could handle a child off the back of those operations…”

“I see.” Spectre said and he supposed that sated one curiosity that he had about Kureha’s origins. 

“I made friends with Maemi… She’s my best friend in the world, without her, I’d be so lonely. Although we only met recently, first year of high school, she does mean a lot to me.” Kureha rambled. She squirmed in her seat, shoulders going up so she could hunker down. “I’m sure this won’t surprise you but I find it really difficult to fit in during elementary school and middle school. I was the… odd duck. The girl no one remembered… like, um, do you remember Mio-chan from the orphanage?”

“Yes, I remember her.” Spectre replied, most long-suffering.

“I ran into her a couple months ago and she didn’t remember me at all.” Kureha commiserated. “I’m glad you remember me, Spectre.”

Spectre’s heart fluttered. He had to avert his gaze and find something else to pay attention to because Kureha was being too sweet and earnest for him to stomach. He looked towards her family’s television set and noticed a gaming console or two. It was just, for some reason, he couldn’t fathom the idea that he would have made such a lasting impression on someone - anyone - for so long and for after so long. It made him feel just a little bit peculiar.

“I’m glad that you do too.” Spectre replied, sounding airy. “I didn’t think that anyone cared about me but it appears that I was wrong.”

“I mean, yeah, you were more than a little mean to me most days but I still liked you. I still thought you were my friend.” Kureha added. 

“Thank you, Kureha.” he said. “Because you are right. I do know a thing or two about being lonely. Isolated.”

For a moment, he wondered if he ought to reveal more of his weirdness to her. All the scars. He just feared that if he were to relay that information of the Lost Incident to her, it would mark her the same way that Zaizen Aoi was marked to Miyu or even Yusaku. And Spectre wasn’t certain if he and Kureha would cross paths again and after this. He almost didn’t want to leave. It felt oddly good to be companionable with someone who was not Ryoken, someone who had known him from well before the Incident. But he kept quiet. He knew he would have to leave every ally and possibly, forever. With such melancholy thoughts on the forefront of Spectre’s mind, his expression soured and Kureha noticed.

“Are you okay, Spectre?” she asked him gently. 

“Why don’t we talk about something less depressing now, hmm?” Spectre suggested and though he erred to do reference yesterday, it was inevitable. “So how much Duel Monsters do you play?”

“Not as much as I would like.” Kureha said. “I’m not very good at it and I only really play against Maemi and we only really lurk in the social hubs…”

“But do you enjoy it when you do?” Spectre asked.

“I do.” Kureha replied with a delighted expression. Spectre savoured it.

Spectre didn’t ask anything further and Kureha didn’t volunteer much else beside her happy little smile on her face. It was nice. Serene even with only the natural sound of city clutter outside until the sound of a phone ringing disturbed them. It was a shrill noise that made Kureha leap to her feet.

“Oh, shoot,” she said, “it’s probably my Dad’s phone, he always forgets it.”

Spectre palmed her off as he adjusted his jacket, “No, actually, it’s mine. My apologies.” he said and got up, turning away from her as he answered his phone. “Now, if you don’t mind…”

“Oh, um, should I leave if it’s a private conversation?” Kureha asked.

It appeared that Spectre didn’t mind either way. He wandered into the kitchen, partially obscured by a half-wall. 

“Prompt as always, Spectre.” Ryoken praised Spectre after he greeted him back. “How’s the date going?”

“Why did you call? Surely not to supervise me. Although, how odd since it’s normally the other way around.” Spectre mused, ignoring Ryoken’s remark.

Kureha couldn’t contain her curiosity. She knelt on the lounge’s cushions but kept herself low but glancing over, Spectre could still see her from the mid of her button nose up. Her eyes were wide and inquisitive, so Spectre reminded himself to temper himself.

“Playmaker is the Link VRAINS.” Ryoken said.

“Good for him.” Spectre retorted, sour.

“And he has confirmed visual on the Earth Obelisk.” Ryoken said.

“Oh.” Spectre intoned blankly.

“Yeah.” Ryoken intoned similarly.

The line crackled with their breaths. Spectre blinked. Of all the luck that he could have gotten, he had to have gotten this one.

He would have thought - he had been hoping - that the Fire Obelisk or the Water Obelisk would reappear before them first. Start with the easy ones with Origins waiting in glee for them to return. But no.

“Kusanagi shared visuals with us and the Lieutenants, it’s honestly astounding. I’ll send a screenshot to you now since your not feeling talkative all of a sudden. We can switch to texting in general if that’s easier.”

“No, I’m just processing this news.” Spectre replied. “I want to see it in person, don’t bother sending me the photo.”

“I thought you might say that. Well, it’s a time sensitive mission, you need to be here ASAP or it might disappear. If you come back to the mansion to log in, it could already have disappeared.”

“So my best option is to wait. Decline this opportunity.” Spectre said and he sounded mixed. Relieved good and relieved bad.

“Spectre. Literally. What were we talking about this morning?” Ryoken sharply reminded him.

“But what should I do about her? Can the lieutenants even mask my presence from this distance?” Spectre inquired.

“We’ll work something out but unless you truly object to either entering the Link VRAINS from the Morikawa Residence or seeing the Earth Obelisk. As far as I can tell, it’s supposed to be a reconnaissance mission since Team Playmaker doesn’t even know what the insides of these places look like or how they function.”

“I want to.” Spectre stated. “I want to participate in this reconnaissance mission. I’ll utilise a safe space here to do so. See you soon.”

“See you soon, and Spectre?” Ryoken’s tone upturned suddenly, towards the end.

“Yes?”

“You have my explicit permission to bring a guest. Since that seems to be what we are doing now, bringing tagalongs, like Sugisaki and even that friend of Soulburner’s possibly, Kamishirakawa, isn’t it? Besides, she already matches your theme already, doesn’t she, that Dandelion?” Ryoken sounded infuriatingly playful as he added this unprofessional aside to the conversation.

“I’m hanging up now.” Spectre stated.

Immediately, he made good on his word and ended the phone call. He could have growled or sighed to himself. The nerve of that man, sometimes. It was rare but Ryoken could beyond annoy Spectre. He was inventing something that was not there. Sure, she might have considered him a friend, now and then, but he had no idea what to think of her. Spectre huffed.

He cast his gaze back towards the living room and Kureha squeaked as she ducked down, trying to avoid his eyes in vain. Spectre moved quite pointedly as he crossed the threshold line of a soft metal that dissected the carpet of the living room and the linoleum of the kitchen. 

“Kureha, do you have a specific Link VRAINS log-in point within this apartment?” Spectre asked and his expression flubbed, went soft with a mild annoyance where he likely meant to look intimidating. 

“Well, er, yes, but its just my bedroom.” Kureha murmured.

“That’s not ideal but its better than nothing, I’ve been given a writ of invitation and must log in to perform duties as a Knight of Hanoi, I wouldn’t mind some privacy, is all.” Spectre explained.

“O-oh, um, nothing illegal right? I don’t want to get me or my parents in trouble…” Kureha whimpered.

“No, nothing illegal.” Spectre assured her, his words tumbling out of his mouth quicker than he intended. Without thought, almost. Then he added, “Though, time is of the essence.”

“Okeydokey then… um… let me show you the way. To my bedroom.” Kureha stiltedly replied.

Spectre didn’t understand her dual reluctance and acceptance of what he had said to her. She awkwardly peeled herself off the back of the lounge and got up. She slipped her small feet back into her equally child-sized slippers and skulked off; he followed. 

Kureha’s room was the second door down the corridor that connected off the sort of in-between of the living room and the kitchen. The first door belonged to a combined toilet and bathroom; and her room was adjacent to it. The third door, beside the bathroom door, was at the bottom of the hallway and Kureha mentioned as being the master bedroom.

Awkwardly, she stood in front of her own door and opened it so that Spectre could come inside first. Kureha stood, fidgeting, in her own doorway as Spectre came inside. He didn’t get what the big deal was. It was just another room to him, although, he would admit, he did find it a bit messier than he was expecting. 

Spectre’s deeper impression of Kureha’s room, stepping into it, was that it was rather comfortable. He didn’t feel like he would be out of place here if he were to log into the Link VRAINS using this as an entry point. Her room got a lot of sunshine; it filtered in past her gabled windows, colouring her room an off-white, making it pastel on the eyes. She had a desk to the left of the window and on it, a few potted plants that hung over her books, stationary, and a rock salt lamp that was turned off. 

To the right of her window, her bed was nestled against the wall, the end of it catching sunbeams and the tickle touches of her translucent curtains. It looked on the larger size yet cozy as the askew quilt atop of it made it look slept in. Her bedding was mostly pink with motifs of stripes and flowers. Spectre squinted as he noticed something off amongst the plush toys that she had piled up along the side of it. One of her toys looked oddly… alive. A black ear flicked, alarming Spectre as he was used to the stillness of Kureha’s room. 

“Oh, Clover, that’s where you were.” Kureha yelped as Spectre finished up looking around.

It was a cat, Spectre realised as it jumped up. It stretched itself out and then leapt down, shooting past him like a black blur. Kureha smiled awkwardly.

“Sorry, he doesn’t like strangers…” Kureha murmured.

“He’s a cat, I don’t care.” Spectre said as he straightened Kureha’s bed for her.

Without thinking, Spectre continued to fuss over bits and bobs inside of Kureha’s room. Just one little thing before logged in, he wouldn’t be able to tolerate logging into the Link VRAINS and dealing with the hullabaloo the Earth Ignis was causing if he didn’t ride out this impulse. He straightened out the curling fronds of the potted plants she had on that hovering shelf above her desk. Just as he thought.

He removed the potted plants from there and went to her window. Kureha watched, letting him do these strange but kind things. Spectre opened up the window and then carefully tipped an excess of water out of the potted plants, Kureha whined as her eyes widened. She remembered that there was a balcony on the floor below and Spectre could damn well see it but didn’t care much as he poured out a slurry.

Spectre then turned to her when he finished, he looked good with the fronds hanging over his hands, holding onto the pot as though it were dear to him, “How often do you water this variety?” he asked with his brows furrowed.

“Oh, um, every morning, when I remember. And in the evening too, but only in summer.” Kureha replied, a touch startled in both demeanour and voice.

“Hmm, killing them with kindness, I can’t decide if that’s better or worse than outright abandoning them.” Spectre mused. “You’ve absolutely drowned this poor darling.”

“S-Sorry.” Kureha warbled.

“She won’t be needing watering for a very long time, wait until the soil you’ve potted her in to be dry and then water sparingly once a week.” Spectre advised her.

He smiled as he returned the potted plant to its former home. Kureha noticed that fondness in his eyes and her heart fluttered.

Spectre sighed. He knew very well that he was procrastinating and he disliked that. He settled at Kureha’s bedside and sat down. He kept his knees and feet together in a prim posture which looked uncomfortable on the soft dip of Kureha’s bed. She just stood, watching, nervous. He looked up at her.

“I appreciate what you’re doing for me, truly,” Spectre said, “and I wasn’t the only one cordially invited to a part two of yesterday’s soiree. Ryoken-sama said that if you were interested, you had permission to log in as well, so, Dandelion, would you like to log in with me?” Spectre asked, he even held out his hand to Kureha.

Her eyes went wide, as though he had asked her to do something irrefutably dangerous. Spectre almost wanted to snicker to himself. It was the same expression that the Kureha from the orphanage would make when someone would invite her to climb around on the monkey bars. He didn’t like it either, but he never squealed in terror of the idea of it. She always said no to such offers, Spectre remembered.

“Okay.” Kureha squeaked.

Spectre blinked with pleasant surprise. “Wonderful.” His voice sounded unpleasant as he had remembered, briefly, after being lost in a swirl of nostalgia, that this was not supposed to be a social outing.

Kureha went to her desk and she pulled out her second drawer. She strapped on her Duel Disc since unlike the utter nut that Spectre was, especially in the company that he was kept by, didn’t automatically wear it as nothing more than a fashion accessory like a wristwatch. Still, she looked cute in that not quite the latest model of Duel Disc that she used. It had been customised with floral foam stickers and a glittering little phone charm-like bauble hung off it as well.

“All set.” she commented.

Kureha smiled a wobbly smile and she sat down on her bed next to Spectre. Her feet were a little bit ajar from one another but she sat close enough to him that they brushed up against each other. It didn’t feel like an invasion of personal space, though. Quite the opposite, actually. It felt weirdly natural, even though they had never sat so close before, not even at the orphanage - or especially there.

Spectre lifted his right arm and Kureha mimicked to the left. They both took a breath and said those all but magic words together, in unison, “Into the VRAINS!”

Blinding light erupted from their Duel Discs. It bubbled out and encased them both, overlapping and they closed their eyes. Their consciousnesses were connected to the Link VRAINS and their bodies were put to sleep. They were transported to a main hub of the digital realm which Spectre hadn’t been expecting. 

He felt like a sore thumb amongst all these random people in the crowd because of his white suit and the aesthetic which couldn’t belong more to the Knights of Hanoi than if he was straight up using their grunt avatar. But, fortunately, no one seemed to mind. He was an invisible presence, especially next to a cute girl like Dandelion who did get a few glances checked her way but they lingered in a I mistook you for someone else sort of way.

“Sorry, we’re probably far out, huh…?” Dandelion murmured.

Spectre checked his Duel Disc. Revolver had sent him a message and he was getting antsy but there were backdoors and corridors for him to take Dandelion through to cut time but it was a strange thing for Spectre to negotiate. Part of him very much wanted to make time run out and another part of him wanted to respect that he was supposed to be trying new things today. Going forward and all that.

“It's fine, just keep up.” Spectre said.

Spectre began to stride through the crowd and Kureha scurried after him. They passed through crowds of people and various décor of this main area for socialisation and just stayed on foot for a bit, ignoring whatever was thrown at them. Promotions, random gossip and other messages, actual announcements. Things such as that, until they had ended up on a quieter outskirts and Spectre checked his Duel Disc again.

He opened up a hacked corridor that would help them cross the Neo Link VRAINS much easier. Inside of the gash in the air in front of him, Dandelion peered in. She saw planks of lime green light in blackness. 

“Is that safe?” she asked.

“Of course.” Spectre replied.

“C-Can I hold your hand? Wh-What if I get lost in, uh, there?” Dandelion asked. Her heart raced and her voice was uneven with panting.

Spectre glanced behind to her with an incredulous expression. She was misty-eyed and no longer a six-year-old and yet she was behaving childishly, those tears congregating on her eyes irked him. He sighed.

“Fine.” He gave up with her.

He stuck out his hand and Kureha cautiously inched closer to him. She slotted her hand against his slowly and he was far too quick, like a snake eating its prey, to enclose his hand against hers. 

Dandelion hiccupped. “Your hand is so much bigger than mine.”

It was true but Spectre didn’t say anything to her comment. However, he did enjoy how it felt to completely hold her little fist inside of his hand. He yanked her.

“Hurry along now.” he said.

“Mm-hm.” Dandelion mumbled.

Spectre pulled her along through the hacked space that he had opened up for them. He could feel Dandelion twitch with fear as they entered the dark. Spectre frowned as he realised something. There had been a rock salt lamp sitting on her desk inside of her room and, of course, there was her known behaviour from the two year stint inside that orphanage.

“Are you still afraid of the dark?” Spectre asked.

“You remember?” Dandelion asked in a pitched voice. She was embarrassed. “Yes.” She grimaced. 

Spectre rolled his eyes but he stopped walking so fast through the hacked doorway, let Dandelion cling to him, letting her walk behind him directly so that she could see more of the safe lightness of his white outer jacket than the darkness around him. Then, he began to wonder if the silence was too much for her as well. The sound of their footsteps was totally consumed by this hacked area within the thin, internal veneer of the Link VRAINS.

“So,” Spectre said, piping up unexpectedly, “why Dandelion as a user identity?” Under his breath and a facade of good manners, he was cursing the social hubs of the Link VRAINS for being too sprawling and the location of the Earth Obelisk for being so distant and obscure.

Dandelion giggled enigmatically. “You don’t remember?” she asked. “I thought you remembered everything.” She cracked a haphazard smile as she recalled the countless times that a younger Spectre had bragged to her at the orphanage that he remembered  _ everything _ from the moment that he had been reborn under his Mother Tree. A lot of the others had called him out for making this up but Kureha had always believed him. Guess she would find out the truth from such an innocuous question.

Spectre frowned. He wracked his brain for any answer which might reveal why Dandelion had chosen taraxacum as the theme for her online persona. As he had discovered earlier, it couldn’t be because she was an aficionado for tea as she struggled to make tea. He also couldn’t think of anything from the orphanage, they rarely played together. He just sat to the corner outside when he could, happy with rocks and pebbles as company whereas she generally played inside with dolls or with the other girls when they could tolerate her. He couldn’t think of a thing and now this query was going to plague him until he had an epiphany about it.

At least having such a conundrum to chew on lessened the time it took to get from one point to another. He received intel via his Duel Disc that they had arrived in the vicinity so Spectre opened up another entry way. Dandelion was most relieved to see the blue sky of the Link VRAINS again, spill into the darkness of this Knight of Hanoi corridor.

The two of them carefully stepped out of the space; it warped behind them, sealing tightly and they copped some unusual looks from Revolver and Playmaker who had been waiting for them. Spectre realised that he had forgotten that he had been holding Dandelion’s hand and he was quick to drop it. Dandelion wasn’t offended but she still stood to the side.

Playmaker and Revolver were both very intimidating but she supposed Spectre was as was but she knew Spectre…

Still, Playmaker and Revolver were sharp eyed and tight-suited, swathed in latex or similar. They had mean demeanours and meant business whereas Spectre had that quieter presence about him. Not to mention, those two were genuinely famous, more akin to myths and legends rather than actual people. Especially as they stood at the bottom of this strange stone tower.

It was a rusted orange in colour. Cracked and faded in parts, sprawling with strange marks, too. It might have been art or even writing but it seemed eclectic and indecipherable either way. It was beyond tall as well, feeling taller than a skyscraper at the base of which. This must have been the Ignis Obelisk they had been talking about.

“Things are proceeding well with your efforts, I assume?” Revolver asked, coy rather than playful like he had been over the phone this morning.

Playmaker threw Revolver a quizzical look, he was holding up his arm so that Ai, in his Ignis form, could do the same.

“I’ve challenged Spectre to attempt some personal growth.” Revolver explained.

“With the girl from yesterday?” Ai piped up.

Spectre glared and he figured that he better be the one to elaborate. “She’s a girl from the same orphanage as me.” he said. “And, she’s a brat who is still scared of the dark at her age. Regardless, Dandelion, you should properly introduce yourself.”

“My name is Dandelion and it’s good to meet you both?” Dandelion warbled, unable to glance at either Playmaker or Revolver. “And it's true… I’m still afraid of the dark.”

“Oh, I see.” Playmaker politely reacted to what had been said.

“And my sincerest apologies about yesterday,” Dandelion said, she bent down straight as she could with her genuine platitude, “Bunny and I hadn’t meant to eavesdrop but very truthfully, we had gotten here first… we had been working on our latest article in private when we got distracted.”

Dandelion blushed as she spoke, rearing back, and no one wanted to know what that meant.

“I believe you.” Playmaker added. “Inactivity periods can blind our perimeter checks from the meat-space.”

“Still, I’m surprised that you and Caspar the Unfriendly Ghost over there know each other. Or heck, even just get along.” Ai said. 

“Ai…” Playmaker growled.

Dandelion stepped a little closer. “What is that… little fellow?” she asked, pointing, only to rescind such a hand gesture upon making it. “O-Oh, sorry, I’m probably not allowed to know. Hush, hush secret business.” Dandelion fidgeted with her long hair as she spoke.

“I think you should be allowed to know.” Spectre said. He spoke both tentatively and decidedly. 

Playmaker blinked. He seemed surprised by that statement. 

Even Revolver wavered a little bit; he had hardly expected that Spectre would indulge the invitation of bringing along his long lost childhood not-friend but this was something else entirely.

They both stared at Spectre, as though he were made of glass and just looking at him would cause him to break. Neither could tell what he was thinking but truth be told, he could barely tell what he was thinking himself. This would mark her as being part of that inner sanctum of those knew and he didn’t want to do that to her yet the child inside of him, who wanted to share his glee and joy and delight, wanted to know if she would finally be the one. The one that not even Ryoken could be and the one that Yusaku could never have been. The one who would be glad that he had found such happiness in the bottom of that tiny, white room. He sucked in a breath and kept his shoulders square.

“She earned that right because she cared about me when I didn’t even know or realise. I would have told her everything I knew as a child, had I been allowed to divulge my joy.” Spectre continued.

Dandelion wasn’t quite sure how to react to such an admission but she did smile even if it was a small smile. She was flattered, maybe. Honoured, perhaps. 

“Ten years ago, when I went missing-”

“The first long time?” Dandelion piped up.

“Yes, the first long time-” 

“Spectre used to go missing a lot, I - I thought the clarification would be helpful. He was the chronic runaway type, haha.” Dandelion awkwardly added, interrupting again.

Spectre made an irritable expression. “That six month period in which I was missing-”

“And announced legally dead the first time?” Dandelion said.

“You were what-?” Playmaker exclaimed.

“Dandelion, you are not being helpful right now.” Spectre scolded her.

“Sorry!” Dandelion squeaked.

“Yes, I was announced as legally dead during the Lost Incident by the matrons. Presumed death by misadventure, body not found.” Spectre said hurriedly.

Playmaker’s eyes went wide with alarm, only to soften with pity. He bit his tongue and thankfully, so did Dandelion. 

Revolver was silent. Expressionless. He was curious to see how Spectre would explain the Incident in front of this audience: the ignorant and the one gone mad with the revelation. He wouldn’t have been surprised if he was about to concoct a grand lie to keep him within this girl’s good graces but Spectre continued with candid elegance now that Dandelion was no longer interrupting him.

“That period of time was known as the Lost Incident, Dandelion, or, from the inside, as the Hanoi Project, hosted by Kogami Kiyoshi, Revolver-sama’s father. He orchestrated an experiment involving six children and I was one of them. The experiment was to create the Ignis, artificial intelligence with free will, and to teach them about life, growth, morality, mortality.” Spectre explained. His voice was oddly serene. “He kept us children on the edge of such greatness by putting us in a harsh environment meant to foster these ideals. For our meals, we had to Duel. If we won, we ate. If we lost, not only did we starve but we were also electrocuted.”

Dandelion gasped; hands over her mouth in distress as she tried to process this information.

Spectre relished her horror and his own expression twisted, “And I enjoyed every minute of it. I enjoyed that I had been deemed as someone with the potential for greatness; I knew I was being tested and I wanted to be on my best behaviour for it. Yes, it’s true, I missed my Mother from time to time but only because I wanted to share stories of my victory and laugh about how I liked the pain with her.”

“You are…” Dandelion tried to speak, hands slowly coming down off her mouth as she tried to work out how she wanted to finish that sentence and she did. With considerable lack of tact. “Such a weirdo.”

Revolver had to stifle a chuckle upon hearing such an exclamation. She was right though.

“I mean that in a nice way…” Dandelion murmured as a peace offering.

This was Spectre, after all. The Spectre who read girly picture books and cried when the mean older boys would step on flowers just to taunt him and the Spectre who would be the first to bite someone if they got into a physical altercation. So, Dandelion’s expression softened as she wrung out her hands.

“I’m serious though,” she murmured, “I do mean it in a nice way. And I’m, um, oh how do I say this? I-I’m not happy-happy about this because oh my stars that is horrifying but I am happy that you’re happy? About, er, oh my gosh, what am I even saying. Any and all of that feels wrong to have said.”

“I know what you mean, don’t worry,” Spectre replied, “you never had the gift of eloquence.”

“This is nice.” Ai commented, piping up. “Who woulda thunk it, eh?”

“Yes, I agree, this is pleasant but it gets us no closer to why we’re even here in the first place.” Playmaker interrupted.

He looked visibly uncomfortable and Dandelion could have cried. Still, him speaking made everyone turn back to the Obelisk. It loomed like a medallion of a harsh desert. They were just in its far-reaching shadows; the prick of it looked like it was fit to scrape the heavens.

“This is the longest we’ve ever been able to make contact with the Obelisk, just standing around talking has bought Unnamed time to come to understand more of what exactly the type of data its made of but I think we should try a more unabashed approach to understanding it.” Playmaker said, bringing them back to topic.

“Playmaker and I did try to enter but we were barred.” Revolver said.

To demonstrate this, Playmaker walked forward. He put his hand, flat, at the brick of the base and pushed against it. Nothing happened. 

“However, Ai can partially get inside.” Playmaker added.

To prove that point, Ai reared himself up and Dandelion gasped as the tiny little creature living in Playmaker’s old model Duel Disc revealed more of himself. He stretched like he was taffy, leaning over in long, stringy bits to touch the Obelisk. But unlike Playmaker who was barred from clipping through, Ai managed to get his hand in there.

“The inside of this place is swarming with our language, I can feel it, it’s so thick!” Ai exclaimed. “I can feel him in there. I can kind of get in but its only ‘cause I’m and Ignis and speaking of Ignis, not to be vulgar, but I feel like my hand is inside Earth.”

“Additionally, for some reason, this is the most stable Obelisk that we’ve seen. This one has been here for half an hour. The longest we’ve tracked an Obelisk before it moved or disappeared, was six minutes. The shortest? Six seconds.” Playmaker added.

“So, something’s changed with this one then?” Revolver said.

Playmaker turned to address Spectre, “We were hoping that you might have permission to enter. You are closer to Earth than Ai, after all, because of your bond as Origin.”

Spectre harrumphed bitterly. He highly doubted that but he couldn’t bring himself to say a word. 

“You neglected to inform Dandelion of what Ignis it was you borne - and your relationship with it.” Revolver said.

“My duelling in the Lost Incident created the Earth Ignis and unlike Playmaker with his glowy little companion there, the Earth Ignis are not quite so amicable as I am a Knight Hanoi, I have been attempting to destroy it and its brethren for the past ten years.” Spectre said, rushing through his words. “The Ignis were deemed too dangerous to live so we were tasked with destroying them in the name of the good doctor who had created them. We neither failed nor succeeded at that task, I did not mind either way…” Spectre explained.

Dandelion looked harrowed, she glanced over to Ai and he squirmed. He hid in Playmaker’s Duel Disc again.

“They’re kind of cute…” Dandelion murmured. The only thing she could muster herself to say.

Spectre furrowed his brow. “I disa…” he went to speak but he shook his head. He didn’t mean his words in relation to Dandelion, he didn’t want her to mistake that. Worse still, he could feel Revolver’s eyes on him and he could feel the disappointment in them.

“I guess today is a bust. A shame.” Playmaker said. He looked back up towards the immense height of the Obelisk behind him.

“I think it looks like a captured princess’s tower that she’s locked in by her cruel step-mother.” Dandelion piped up. 

Playmaker blinked and looked at her quizzically.

Revolver’s expression changed - thank goodness - and it became smug. He knew that he had asked Spectre bring her along for a reason. A fresh set of eyes on this situation might have been the exact thing that they needed. Even if it wasn’t the most overtly helpful thing.

“Care to explain?” Playmaker asked.

Dandelion squeaked, and she squirmed on the spot. Revolver and Playmaker were now both waiting for her to say something so she was now hiding under her fluffy fringe again to avoid them. She frantically played with the end of her side pony-tail again.

“You know… like Rapunzel. Ah, no, that doesn’t make any sense. So, um, maybe it's like a video game dungeon… you have to save the hero’s lo-love interest...” she said. Then groaned. “Ooh, that was a stupid thing to say… I really don’t think- I’m not really… This is all too much! It’s beyond me! I should just go-”

A sudden rush of wind interjected: from inside the Obelisk, blowing past them all, a tentacle shot out. Dandelion screamed as she was the one attacked specifically. The tentacle - with paddle-like bulges at the end, coloured orange with brown markings - wrapped around her waist as tight and heavy as an anchor then pulled her in. She screamed, thrashed, but it all happened so fast. As though a trigger word of some description had been spoken.

Revolver and Playmaker could only stare in horror as Dandelion was pulled inside of the Obelisk. 

Spectre, however, was more proactive than wide stares with gleaming eyes. He rushed in. Completely unlike himself.

“Dandelion!” Spectre screamed.

He launched himself from where he stood and raced through the wake of air left by the tentacle. And he ran into the Obelisk. His body phased through it effortlessly. Passing through its structure slowed him and when he came out the other side, he stumbled. He hazarded a few paces as he weaned off the momentum he had thrown himself into without thinking. Blood rushed to his head as he came to a stop and he looked around. It was much wider than it seemed on the inside. 

His heart pounded as he turned around. He crept back to the wall and put his hands on it. He pushed and pushed again. He was trapped. 

“Hello? Revolver-sama?” he called out, trying to reach back to the other side.

He waited and then anxiously looked upwards, he had a feeling that wherever Dandelion had been taken, it would be to the peak of this structure. But he waited again. He wanted instructions. He was not the jousting hero who could charge forward on his own volition, he was the foot-soldier who carried out orders and he needed orders.

“Revolver-sama?” Spectre cried out again and he felt his voice break.

He was certain. They couldn’t hear him from the inside.

Spectre took a breath and he peeled away from the wall. It felt coarse on his palms and he checked his Duel Disc. He closed his eyes and he made a wish that communications would not be disrupted. He opened his eyes again as he examined this mode of his Duel Disc’s function. And of course. He was pulling up error after error as he tried to contact Revolver.

Spectre swallowed a hard lump in his throat and pulled himself away from the wall. He looked around and opposite him was a set of brick stairs that squarely spiralled upwards along the wall. It was tight inside, even if it was roomier than it looked from the outside. Claustrophobic, in a way, but Spectre generally felt safer in smaller rooms than larger ones so he kept his breathing regulated as he made his ascent. 

As he made his ascent, Spectre’s mind started working on that puzzle from before. It was better to fixate on rather than the peril that Dandelion was in and the peril that Revolver was in from having watched Spectre disappear inside the Obelisk. That puzzle, of course, being the question of why Dandelion had chosen the plant taraxacum as her moniker and the general basis of her user identity. She even wore a ruffled skirt, after all, just like the white head of fluff that a dandelion possessed when its seeds were ready to be spread.

He couldn’t think of a thing and therefore made no progress on it but that wasn’t truly the point. All that mattered was that he wasn’t solely fixated on how long it had taken him to reach the top of the Obelisk or anything else related to that and that, however, did work. In what had felt like barely anything at all, Spectre had reached the ‘top’ of the Obelisk, although, looking up, he could still see more but it was inaccessible.

He had arrived at some sort of platform with a deep, empty space between where he stood and where someone else could stand on what was like a rock hewn pier. Looking down, Spectre couldn’t see to the floor which he had started from. Only darkness. It was dim here and strange, floating lights of orange in bizarre, mangled patterns flitted about.

“Hello?” Spectre’s voice rang out with fear and uncertainty. “Dandelion, are you here?”

“Spectre? Oh my gosh, is that you?”

Her voice rang out from… somewhere but Spectre couldn’t see her no matter how he turned his head in panic for her. Her voice bounced off the walls and seemed to have no determinate source. Neither near nor far. Just everywhere and he could feel the beating rate of his heart rise and a bead of sweat on his temple, dribbling down as he strained his eyes. The dim of the inside of the Obelisk was harsh. 

“E-Earth? Earth Ignis…?” Spectre didn’t know how to address his own Ignis. “Did you take her?” 

How odd. He felt as though he were talking to a ghost. And so, Spectre laughed a wry laugh. There was silence when his hacking noises ceased. He waited, with a sneer of a smile. And then there was a growl.

It was horrid. Bestial but distorted, with a grain to it. Like it became more electronic than organic suddenly. It made Spectre want to cover his ears. The noise made the Obelisk quake. Dust bled off the walls as the stagnant rock of it broke off. Debris tumbled downwards, heard crashing against the walls and something appeared from nothingness in front of Spectre, inside of that countenance. 

Spectre was fairly certain that he was now looking at the Earth Ignis. But he was not entirely certain because his assumption of the Earth Ignis was that it was a small, bulky humanoid creature with bright orange skin and cyan eyes and only eyes on its face. This was not quite that.

It was the wrong size, to start with. Ignis were tiny. This was more human sized but not quite. A bit bigger than that. And with extra limbs, long, sprawling tentacles unfurling either side of its body and its body had been fused with that tree logged servant that it had used to navigate the Link VRAINS earlier. Rocky outcrops also jutted here and there from its body, too. Making it monstrous and grotesque, Spectre could hardly want to look at this creature but he couldn’t tear his gaze away from it.

“Where is Dandelion?” he asked. 

Spectre remained firm in his body language but on the inside, he was rotting. He shouldn’t have done that, he shouldn’t have done this. He was methodically unpicking every decision that he had made today, winding back all the way to the moment he had woken up. 

All in all, Morikawa Kureha was a normal girl. A civilian. She had two parents who loved her, a best friend she got into mischief with, a cat that slept on her bed, and a rock salt lamp because even all these years later, she was still afraid of the dark. She was not someone who needed to be privy to all his secrets purely because one upon a time, every day for two years, they would simply eat dinner together because they happened to live in the same orphanage together. They were hardly friends. They should have been on two different trajectories and this was what he got for being greedy. He got punished. The things that he loved, such as his Mother Tree and the excitement of the Lost Incident, were taken away from him. Time and time again, this was the hand that he was dealt. He should not have let Dandelion be one of those things. Even timidly or briefly.

But, he had.

“I said,” Spectre growled, “where is Dandelion?”

“Duel me… for her…” the Monster of the Earth Obelisk roared.

Upon speaking, as ragged a voice as it was, Dandelion was revealed. Dangled in front of Spectre like a piece of meat. She looked terrified inside that cage that she was lowered from. Held on a string, sobbing inside and Spectre’s gut wrench. It was an all too familiar scene but he had to admit. Being on the side the hostage was being levied against, rather than the fiend who orchestrated suc things, did not feel all that good. 

“Dandelion!” he called out to her.

“Sp-Spectre?” she hiccupped and she inched closer to the thick, barbed bars of her cage. 

She looked so relieved to see him. Spectre’s heart skipped a beat but he had to remain focus. A lot was going to ride on this Duel apparently. His eyes returned to the cruel gaze of all the piercingly cyan eyes which belonged to the Monster across from him. It moved its arm and wood jutted out from the tendon, becoming the basis of an old style Duel Disc.

Spectre returned the challenge and kept his chin up. “Duel.” he said.

The Monster nodded it's bulging head and took the first turn. It used the Earth Ignis’s monsters and Spectre watched as such a familiar strategy of love and care unfolded before his eyes. Even when used in wretchedness, he was almost endeared to the similarity between himself and his Ignis. Their duel was bittersweet. Mismatched as it was stall deck against stall deck but Spectre duelled as gallantly as he could for Dandelion’s release.

Spectre was not a hero. He was a villain. But if it was for Dandelion, if only to return her back to that sense of normalcy that he had wrongly taken from her, then he would be a hero. Her hero, if he could flatter himself so highly. Facing down a monster worse than, surely he could be that at least. 

It was a gratingly slow duel but Spectre prevailed. He won.

He had thought countless times within the gruelling grind of this duel that he would lose. It came down to such wires an innumerable amount of times but keeping Dandelion in his view helped to keep Spectre calm. He had to win, for her, if nothing else then it would be for her so he duelled to capabilities that he thought far exceeded in himself. And yes, he maintained that gorgeous Full Mode Extra Link to the very end and with it, he made a beautiful victory for himself in this ugly situation.

In this duel, Spectre learned a lot, mostly about himself. He learned about the Earth Ignis and what a marvellously different to him the sort of creature it was. An Ignis that claimed to know the human condition and emotion better than the others; how revolting, more revolting still was that Spectre could sense it was true. He was about the same. Just in vastly different ways.

He came to accept the fact that yes. He did want the reconciliation and absolution that a partnership between him and the Ignis that he produced would cause the occurrence of. He was able to say that out loud, even to such poor conversation as the Monster that was part that very same Ignis and something else entirely. But by defeating him, Spectre pierced that guise and he was able to bring forth something which was nothing short of a miracle. The resurrection of the Earth Ignis.

From that form, bit by bit falling off that gargantuan, monstrous body, in the core of it, the Earth Ignis broke free, renewed, recreated. Although, it was not quite the glorious reunion that could be compared to the likes of the Dark Ignis and Playmaker. Earth was most confused and rather alarmed to find himself where he was and yet, there was a fondness in his eyes.

“It is good to make your acquaintance… partner.” the Earth Ignis said upon crossing that gap.

Spectre withheld a sob. It would be most improper to show his sincere feelings here but he suspected that he was also upholding an awful farce. If anyone would see past his masks and facades, it would be Earth and also Dandelion.

“The pleasure is all mine,” Spectre replied, on the tip of his sharp tongue like a duplicitous gentleman, “but I believe you ought to relinquish the girl now that I have won, those were the conditions, that was my understanding.”

The Earth Ignis nodded, a strange pride glowing off him. “Of course.”

Spectre couldn’t contain himself, he smiled a strangely free smile. Wild and quite a bit relieved.

“One condition.” the Earth Ignis added, or perhaps he was still working on his very same sentence as he was a little slow.

“And what condition would that be?” Spectre sharply inquired.

“I wish to take residence in your Duel Disc, as is… customary. More suitable than your eye…” the Earth Ignis said.

Spectre rolled his eyes to conceal the shudder in his shoulders as he remembered that ghastly incident with Onizuka. “Yes, yes, that’s fine, you have my permission, it is customary, you are quite right.” he rambled, snippy, as his eyes, at their uppermost arch, landed on the look of Dandelion, oh she was precious but growing understandably impatient. 

The Earth Ignis’s square eyes bowed in a way which could only express fondness. He inched closer to Spectre and Spectre adhered to the condition. He lifted his hand and twisted his wrist slightly so Earth could have a smooth entrance into his Duel Disc. It felt wrong. Almost dirty with betrayal to the Knights of Hanoi but they had made an oath. To protect the current state of the Link VRAINS and whatever that entailed, and presently that meant creating a safe haven so that the horrid events, like what the Light Ignis had created, did not occur a second time.

The Earth Ignis slipped into the electronic orb of glass set into Spectre’s Duel Disc, ducking down awkwardly into it and then settling. Ignis Code illuminated the surface in a quick, orange flash and there was a contented sigh. Earth popped out his head shyly.

“The older models… like what you and the other children duelled with… would be more comfortable than this.” the Earth Ignis complained.

Spectre had to bite his tongue so, politely, he said instead, “Earth, be a dear, and make good on your promise, or else.”

“O-Oh, yes, of course.” Earth squeaked, his shoulders bristled, and then he warned, to little or no use, “Be careful.” 

Spectre didn’t have time at all to heed that meagre warning of Earth’s as Dandelion’s release from her cage was all the more swifter than the spoken word. Dandelion screaming as she plummeted downwards, her ruffled skirt rippling as she held it down against gravity. Spectre screamed back in reply and Earth got swept up in that as well, disliking the loud and sudden noises as Spectre launched himself forward in the effort to catch his beloved.

And he did. Quite safely at that as well. He couldn’t believe it. How time seemed to slow as he raced to that edge, arms out and how Dandelion plummeted so perfectly into his embrace. His heart raced as he managed to catch Dandelion in the bridal style. She looked like a small, frightened animal in his arms but not a stray hair on her pretty little head was harmed. He smiled to himself but he swallowed it. He could feel his legs buckle and he was close to the very edge that he had duelled at; if he strained his hearing, he could hear debris break off the rocky pier below. But he had to put on a brave face for Dandelion or else there would be worse hysterics than already endured.

“Are you alright, Dandelion?” Spectre asked.

She was a little frozen about it but she did nod with the faintest hint of a smile on her rouged up lips. 

“That is pleasing to know.” Spectre replied.

His arms began to ache as he held her so tightly. She rested her hands, like the paws of some rodent, on his chest and smiled a bit more confidently now. Meanwhile, all around them, the world was not solely theirs anymore. The Obelisk began to crumble. Yet neither minded nor felt unsafe by this despite how dust and debris rained down, even if it was softly.

“You know,” Spectre begun, star struck, “I believe that I recall now why you would select ‘Dandelion’ as your username.” 

“Oh?” Dandelion said as she preened, batting her eyelashes and even shimmying her shoulders. “Do spill.”

Spectre’s eyes slid elsewhere, from Dandelion’s face, and he glanced at Revolver and Playmaker who now had full view of this grand and unusual side, “In private company, dear.” he replied to her.

“Huh?” Dandelion blinked.

She turned her head as she was not quite so graceful as disguising her gaze as Spectre and her jaw dropped when she realised that the Obelisk was no more and so, she was now in Spectre’s arms for all to see. She squeaked, eyes going wide, and held onto Spectre tighter, as though trying to hide using him but she was failing to do so. Spectre thought it was adorable and gave her something of a rock or bounce to console her, the same way one might try to lull a petulant baby to sleep.

“You were successful, so I must commend your fruitful efforts.” Revolver teased.

Dandelion made a strangled noise out of fright.

“Don’t do that to her, she is thin-skinned.” Spectre lamented playfully as Dandelion continued to bury herself in vain against his breast.

Playmaker just looked very tired. His brows upturned as he asked a question, “I’m glad that Dandelion is safe,” he said, “but what happened to Earth? Is he safe?”

“Yeah, is my buddy old pal that big chunker good?” Ai asked, popping out of Playmaker’s Duel Disc with a similarly morose expression, little fists held in front of his chest.

“Dandelion?” Spectre prompted the girl. “I’m going to put you down now.”

“O-Oh, yes, okay.” Dandelion replied with the vocal equivalent of dawdling. 

Spectre grunted as he let Dandelion down. She made a whining noise and apparently did not appreciate that it took so much effort to heft her down, but he still helped her onto her own two feet. A touch lingered between them before Spectre broke it off so he could display his Duel Disc to Revolver and Playmaker.

Slowly but surely, the Earth Ignis emerged from within its digital depths. He popped out head first and then his bulky shoulders followed. He waved, awkwardly, at the two and visibly shrank under the scrutinizing gaze of Revolver but Ai was quick to rectify the situation.

Ai swooped in and gave Earth a ginormous 

hug. Earth stiffened as Ai sobbed with joy onto his shoulder. Earth patted Ai’s back as Ai hugged him, fond and reciprocating but uncertain as to convey his own happiness at being back.

“I’m happy for you too.” Playmaker said quietly to Earth through Ai’s wailing.

Dandelion stared, she clustered close to Spectre but seemed intent on inspecting the two Ignis. She had to admit. The big bulky orange one was not what she was expecting for Spectre but he was cute anyway in a gawky sort of way. She smiled.

“I’m happy for you as well.” Dandelion piped up. “Even if, um, well, you know, you took me captive.” Her voice got progressively quieter as she spoke.

Revolver furrowed a brow. “Yes, about that, we can’t very well have Ignis running around capturing innocent young girls, especially not  _ our _ Ignis. Explain yourself.” Revolver demanded of Earth.

Earth quivered at the cold tone of Revolver’s voice. He gently pushed Ai’s arms off him and Ai had a heartbroken look in his topaz-coloured eyes. Earth looked down at his hands. He couldn’t see the burns he had inflicted on himself when he had rescued Aqua and that wounded him more than the searing memory.

“That… wasn’t me but I will take responsibility for that creature regardless.” Earth said. “It is morally wrong to jail the innocents.”

Revolver hummed.

“Like the sewer monsters of the Link VRAINS, that is what I… and the rest of my kin… became inside those abominable catalysts.” Earth continued, he looked away from Ai and Revolver, he gazed toward Spectre instead. “I don’t have the words to describe the emotional function of the Obelisks… not because there are little but because there are too many. A Bohman-inspired haven where I recollected myself from bits and pieces. Put back together slowly, slower than my original creation but I can sum it up in one word.”

There was a shine to Earth’s eyes. It was hopeful where his voice was harrowed and morose. Ai and Playmaker feared that the Obelisks were more a prison than a haven for the Ignis to resurrect within.

“And that word?” Spectre prompted Earth when the silence of the Ignis lingered a second too long.

“Love.” Earth stated.

Everyone’s first reaction was stunned silence. Only for Spectre to break said silence with an amused chuckle. He guffawed, eyes closing, completely beside himself with inane hilarity that made people stare at him.

“Spectre!” Revolver reprimanded him.

With just that, Spectre ceased his laughter. And thank goodness for that as Dandelion’s eyes had begun to water. Her face was flushed and she was standing on her haunches with frustrated fists by her side. Playmaker thought it callous too.

“I just find it absurd to hear.” Spectre replied, his breath was light and airy.

“It is true.” Earth insisted, scowling an Ignis scowl. “It was the emotion of love that stabilised the Obelisk I was trapped in, I am certain.”

Spectre huffed, defensive and disbelieving.

“Earth, do you think the other Ignis are waiting for a specific emotional stabilisation from their Origins so they can be freed from their Obelisks?” Playmaker inquired seriously.

“Certain.” Earth confirmed.

“Makes sense to me as well since everyone knows that Earth was super lovey-dovey for Aqua.” Ai pointed out.

Playmaker stroked his chin. “Interesting, I’m inclined to agree.”

“Aw, you do have a heart in that ice chamber you call a rib cage.” Ai cooed. “I’ll get you hooked on my favourite soap operas soon, don’t you worry.”

“No,” Playmaker sighed, tired, “I agree that it makes sense that the Ignis would catalyze around emotions central to their individual identity, let’s relay this information to Kusanagi and the others. This will hopefully prove useful in tracking the other Obelisks.” Playmaker said. “And now, not to sound like my childhood therapist or anything but we may have to keep diaries logging the other Origins’ daily thoughts and feelings so we have more than our memory to use for cross reference.”

“We will leave you with such tasks. As far as I desire, the Knights’ involvement with specific search and rescue is over. We will deliver tips, should we find any, and that is all outside of emergencies.” Revolver said. 

“I can accept those terms and conditions. Thank you.” Playmaker said. He then turned to Spectre and there was a surprisingly bright look in those citrus green eyes. “Ai and I will be excusing ourselves now.”

Ai snapped back into place at the base of Playmaker’s Duel Disc, stammering with betrayal, his hand flung back to Earth, Spectre, and Dandelion, too.

“What if there’s more soap involving them?” Ai asked. 

“Then it’s not our business and quite frankly, I don’t want it to be.” Playmaker retorted.

Revolver snickered and Spectre smiled, “Tell me what you really think.” Then, with a look of pity, he glanced at Dandelion. “He’s more socially awkward than you may realise. His stoic vigilante shtick is just emotional repression and inability to socialise, came about as an accident.”

“Until next time.” Playmaker said.

Playmaker readied himself to log out but Ai continued to plead with him. Just a little longer to make an uncomfortable scene. Ai’s hands flailed about.

“Just one last thing I have to point out.” Ai begged.

“Fine.” Playmaker grunted through gritted teeth.

“The number three. They are the third coupling like this, ain’t it strange?” Ai said and Spectre’s eyes began to widen with the realisation that Ai was trying to point out, not that he kept up with the other side of this company’s soaps or anything, well, he did, but for manipulative purposes only, “First, Kiku and Soulburner. Then, Miyu and Blue Maiden. And now-”

“Enough. Don’t poke that wasp nest.” Playmaker snapped.

Ai protested but Playmaker logged them out. Playmaker’s expression was stern as Ai was silenced by them both breaking into pieces of disappearing data. 

“We best be on our way as well.” Spectre said. 

“Yeah, true,” Dandelion worried, “Mum and Dad’s date at the movies can’t last forever.”

Oh how sweet, how trite, Spectre forced a small smile.

“We can reconvene later, Revolver-sama, and create… boundaries regarding the Earth Ignis at that point.” Spectre advised.

“Agreed, but take your time. I’m in no hurry.” Revolver told him. He nodded his head, more specifically at Dandelion. “Until we meet again.”

Revolver logged out next and Spectre felt hot - annoyed - under his tight collar. He watched as his master disappeared. He huffed.

“No point in us staying either, yeah…?” Dandelion murmured.

“Indeed.” Spectre stuffily replied.

So, they made haste as well. Spectre logged out and Dandelion followed. It was strange waking up from the strikingly awake yet dreamlike state of being in the Link VRAINS for an extended period of time. Spectre was fine but Kureha was yawning. They awkwardly discovered that their bodies had slumped against one another in rest and buttered away from each other. Yet they still stole rosy glances at the other.

“I feel stiff…” Kureha quietly complained.

Spectre tore himself from the bed hastily and began to pace her room. He wasn’t sure why but he just needed to be up and on his feet, doing something. Anything. Kureha, meanwhile, leaned forward to peer through her door frame and strained her ears. It seemed her parents were still out, that was lucky. They would be beside themselves if they knew she had been cosied up with a boy like Spectre right now.

“Clover? Here Clover, Clover, Clover, c’mon, my little sooky-sook.” Kureha sang out for her cat since it seemed that Spectre wasn’t going to make conversation just yet. 

Although she had been expecting disobedience from her pet, Kureha was pleasantly surprised when she heard the ringing of the bell on Clover’s collar. She grinned as she watched her cat come as he was called, skidding into her room and only stopping suddenly, in her doorway, to lick himself clean on the sole white patch on his otherwise grey-black coat.

Earth peeped out of Spectre’s Duel Disc, “What a curious creature…” he murmured before hiding again.

Clover finished up cleaning himself and sauntered into the room. Most amazingly, he took his sweet time so he could rub against Spectre’s legs, getting cat hair on his trousers to his disgruntlement but he was polite about it. Also as unexpected as a cat being arbitrarily obedient.

“Good boy…” Spectre awkwardly said. He even leaned down and Clover let him touch him. Spectre scratched behind Clover’s folded ear and he chirped before moseying onto Kureha.

Kureha giggled to herself as Clover got comfortable on her lap. So much for her walking off any stiffness as it was now illegal for her to move until Clover did first.

“That’s rare, you know.” Kureha said. “Did I mention it before? I can’t remember but Clover doesn’t like strangers much but he must be used to you now maybe…”

“I worked it out, you know. I mentioned that before as well.” Spectre said.

Kureha blinked. “I wanna hear it then.” 

Spectre returned to Kureha’s side and sat down beside her. He faced her and he elicited an equal gaze from Kureha. He smiled thinly.

“It’s because you make wishes on dandelions.” Spectre said.

“Yep, you were the one to tell me that wives’ tale.” Kureha giggled. “I was watching you that one time. You mustn’t have noticed me but I saw you, closer into the woods than the matrons would have liked and I saw you standing on a hill. Blowing dandelions into the wind. At dinner, you had seeds in your hair, I asked you what you were doing and you told me. You were making wishes.” 

Spectre laughed. How marvellously descriptive but he adored how she spoke. Perhaps he had written her off earlier, calling her ineloquent as he had. Maybe her penchant for writing in that drivelling online magazine she and her best friend co-wrote had taught her something when she could think clearly at least.

“You never told me what wishes you were making.” Kureha murmured.

“I wished that the seeds would plant and live good, healthy lives.” Spectre confessed. “But tell me, what wishes do you make?”

“Heyyy, they don’t come true if I tell you.” Kureha whined.

“When you log into the Link VRAINS, I mean.” Spectre clarified.

“O-oh, I, um… I wish to be stronger. I don’t like being timid and docile, I want to be stronger.” Kureha said.

“Then I’ll wish for a good, healthy life for you too, on this dandelion I’m looking at right now.” Spectre whispered.

“Huh? What dande-”

Spectre leaned in, so close that Kureha thought she was going to be kissed, but then he faked her out at the last second. He blew into her face and she winced. Her fringe was pushed back by his gusting exhale, revealing her forehead and she blinked. When she opened her eyes, her eyelashes fluttering, Spectre’s stomach somersaulted. He had never noticed before how her eyes glittered nor the flecks of brown in them amid the dark green of her irises. 

“Do you think it’ll work?” Spectre asked, smarmy. “You have to blow out every seed for it to work, after all, and I think I got every strand right now.”

Kureha blushed. “I- oh, um…”

“You don’t have to say a thing.” Spectre assured her.

“I like you.” Kureha blurted out. “Like, a lot.”

Spectre looked at her pitifully. “You shouldn’t. Putting it lightly, I’m all the things you said I am. A criminal, a weirdo, I’m, well, Tree Boy. Wouldn’t you like someone more on the straight and narrow?”

“I don’t. I - I think you are being presumptuous of my wants and likes. Maybe I’m a weirdo too, if only for liking you and your company.” Kureha told him. The most confident she had been all of the day. “I mean, look at us? Are we not a pair of cowards? But we made a wish. Just now. To get stronger. And you may have wished for me and only me but I want it to be an us instead.”

She was hesitant after making such affectionate proclamations but she reached up towards his face. He wanted to move away from her and yet he didn’t. He wondered why. It mattered not as her fingertips ghosted the side of his face. 

“I like you.” Kureha murmured. “Do you like me too?”

“I shouldn’t,” Spectre murmured, he took her hand and noticed her nails were picked short, he brought her wrist to his mouth, “but I do.” He kissed the inner of her wrist.

Kureha’s heart fluttered. That was… this was… easily the most romantic thing anyone had ever done to her. She was swooning. And he could tell, Spectre was delighted so he could not deny himself, or even her, any further. Holding her hand, he kissed her lips.

Immediately Kureha sighed into the kiss. She closed her as Spectre kissed her voraciously. His technique was wooden, straightforward in a sense, but she didn’t mind. It was like the devouring of prey by a predator. Kureha just let herself be kissed and she enjoyed every moment of it until Spectre reared back. Leaving her wanting more after what felt like an eternity anyways. She panted shallowly, her lips peachier now after being kissed.

“I- I should go now.” Spectre suggested.

“But you promise to be back, right?” Kureha asked, eyes watering. “Y-You wouldn’t kiss me and leave me, y-you always come back. Even from the dead. Multiple times, apparently.”

“I promise.” Spectre replied, murmuring. His hand snaked from Kureha’s hand and to her cat, he scratched the base of Clover’s neck and he began to purr to Kureha’s delight. Spectre was smug, it was something of a talent of his to find every creature’s weakness. 

“But only,” he said after that moment of quiet, “if you afford me a similar condition.”

“Y-Yes, of course.” Kureha stammered.

“You better not kiss and tell, I do not want any of this, any part of today, in your little friend’s gossip rag.” Spectre said venomously. 

Kureha jumped. “Yes, absolutely, I understand completely.” She sounded breathless.

Spectre laughed. Maybe he could begin to allow himself to be greedy, he mused to himself as he made plans to disappear again. But he would return. To do otherwise would be cruel since she was clearly prone to pining. And worst still, so was he.

He had lied. He had thought of her a handful of times during the Incident and even in the aftermath of the aftermath. He had missed her. Just a little bit. He had wanted to boast to her; he had wanted to tease her and make her upset by telling her that the ugly monster on this particular card’s art reminded him of her. It had only been a handful of times he had thought of her, a minute numerical value which was now zero, and if he were to leave her again now, he had a sneaking suspicion that he would swing the other way. She would be unable to leave his thoughts.

Spectre kissed Kureha again, slowly, and he sighed into the kiss. Kissing her, he flustered not only Kureha, but her cat and Earth, too. Yes, it felt quite good to be greedy.


End file.
